I have been in a state of limbo for a while with my Second Life. I love SL, but the time has come to retire this avatar. I have always been one to compartmentalize, and as a result I have kept a few avatars as I use each differently to explore and engage with SL. Silly Avro has been what I consider my main avatar for a number of years. However, life on another of my avatars as become much more vibrant and it is time I give her the title of my main avatar. I am not going to publish all the details here, just wanted to leave some record for any who may wonder what became of Silly Avro. I welcome any private inquiries and am willing to share my new SL with any who care to inquire. Thank you all for reading and following. I hope your First and Second Lives are full of love and light!

It is Thanksgiving in the United States so that means a day full of gratitude for what life has given me and time with family. Mind you, I am grateful for these things every day, but perhaps I am not as mindful of them as I should be on a daily basis. It is easy to get caught up in the task at hand, but I think it is a wonderful practice to have an attitude of gratitude on a daily basis, not just one day out of the year. I know I am striving to do this as I work to become more mindful on the whole.

This Thanksgiving I am grateful for my family, my friends, my body and all its imperfections. I am grateful for the wonderful new job I have and all the people I have gotten to know so far. I am grateful to have met so many amazing people in Second Life. I have been in SL nearly 11 years now (my rez day is coming up on 11/26). SL has never failed to capture my attention in multiple ways. It has taught me so many things and allowed me to meet people I would have otherwise never met.

I am thankful for you and I hope that wherever you are in the world, that you practice an attitude of gratitude. No matter your circumstances, there is always something to be thankful for.

I know it’s been a while. There has been a lot going on in my real life that made me take a step back from Second Life a bit. It’s not that I haven’t been here, but more that I haven’t been inspired to create images or write, which in the end left me feeling rather sad. To be honest, my real life work situation was very toxic, which can easily kill anyone’s creativity and positive mood. I am happy to report I have changed jobs. That change has been refreshing in so many ways.

As some of you who know me or have been reading me for a while may know, I am an educator in RL. I have worked with elementary aged students. After several years of that and some encouragement from higher ups, I tried my hand at being a teacher on assignment. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it is generally a teaching position based out of the district office where teachers work with other teachers at school sites throughout the district in a specialized area like technology, math, science, language arts, etc. I had tried for a position like this many times in my former district and had not been selected, until a few years ago. I of course entered this new opportunity with high hopes and excitement as I am an optimist at heart. But it turned out to be nothing at all like I hoped. Rather than build me up and give me new experiences and exposure to other schools, teachers and administrators in my district, it tried to grind me down. I had a lot of low moments in that job and missed my classroom and previous school…the teachers I worked with, the kids I taught, the families I supported. I knew I had to get that back. After a very long and taxing job search (which ones aren’t right?), I landed a job in a wonderful new school district as an assistant principal of two elementary schools. I work for amazingly supportive people and am mentored by two wonderful principals. I love both schools I work at, the kids, their families, and the staff. I feel energized and fulfilled. Needless to say the change has been incredibly refreshing. I’ve been in my new position since July and while it has been amazing, there has been a lot to learn and a lot of folks to get to know. I am off this week for Thanksgiving break, reflecting on how things have improved for me professionally, but also seeing other areas in my life that need improvement…such as my academic work as a doctoral student and my spiritual life.

While some would leave Second Life to handle those things, I am one who finds creating in Second Life to be very helpful for me overall. It is a space where I can create in many ways, giving me a much needed outlet. This blog also allows me some room to share in semi-anonymity. I can’t say all the things I would like to on my RL social media…educator/administrator and all. I can’t even be as creative as I would like to be, for the same reasons. Professional persona. So here in this space I feel I can be more truly me, saying and doing as I wish…within reason of course.

For this round of The Guardians we have Janet, a gacha full of options designed for Maitreya’s Lara. Janet is made up of a lot of individual options including: bento gloves, short & long boots, skirts, tops, and jacket. There are are two rares with 5 colors for all parts and three metals. The common items come in 5 colors and each have a HUD that control metals as well as trim and lacing. Of course there is a Gift of the Guardians that is special to the event only. The gift unique to this round are metal add ons for Janet…arm guards and leg guards. While Janet will come to the main store after the event is over, the Janet Gift of the Guardians will never be offered again, so you don’t want to miss this!

I am trying to be better about my social media content and participation in RL and SL. As a part of that effort I am trying to get my vlog and blog on again. Thankfully the Blogger Vlogger Network (aka the BVN) gave me a perfect opportunity! They recently announced a Secret Santa post exchange. The idea sounded fun to me and I am always down for some fun in SL so I signed up, even if I was a little self-conscious of my lack of post regularity. BVN randomly matched me with Lauryn Arado. She is a super sweet resident from Bogota, Colombia. Since I really enjoy vlogging I approached her with helping me officially kick off my Silly Chats idea and she graciously agreed!

I really enjoyed getting to know Lauryn a bit and I hope you will too by checking out our chat!

Be sure to give her website and Flickr stream a visit, you will be glad you did!

I get ALOT of fashion magazines. So many my husband complains about how they take up all the space in our mailbox when more than one arrives on the same day. While my RL has been so busy of late I have not had time to read them all, and I refuse to cancel them. Well, I have cancelled some of them, but not all of them. Instead I make neat little piles in a back room of all the unread magazines and slowly make my way through them.

It had been a suggestion to me as a new aspiring SL model back in my days at the AVENUE modeling school to subscribe to RL fashion magazines for inspiration. I did that and that is how long I have been getting these magazines…four + years now or so, so my piles of them in the back room of my house really aren’t that small. I will only part with the magazines once I have read through them for any inspiration.

I’ve realized that I am the sort who enjoys prompts. What I mean is on my RL educator blog, I was part of a year long blogging club where prompts were given. I found that those prompts did amazing things for the frequency of my posting and what I posted about. I have not found any blogging prompts that would suit this blog, and I want to take more photos thanks to my ongoing involvement with VISIONAIRE, so I thought I would look not only for fashion and styling inspiration in the RL fashion magazines I get, but for photography inspiration.

Where do you get your inspiration to blog? Share with me in the comments blow. 🙂